(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to motion picture film and television production and particularly to motion picture film and television production carried forward within a production studio.
(2) Prior Art
The majority of entertainment available to the consumer today has its origins in what would now be called live presentations in which performers undertake their entertainment activities in the presence and in front of a viewing audience. This form of entertainment appears to have been present in even the earliest of societies. During the last century, a significant change in entertainment presentation occurred with the advent of motion picture filming, causing the entertainment industry to branch into live presentation on the one hand, and filmed presentation on the other hand. As is known, the film branch of the entertainment industry grew dramatically within the last century and in many minds, actually eclipsed the original live performance branch of the industry. Because the dramatic growth in film entertainment was accompanied by a period of intense technology development, the film industry rapidly grew in sophistication of cinemagraphic arts. Various film techniques were developed by which the entertainment value and drama of the presentation could be increased. The majority of these mechanisms were categorized as "special effects" and included, initially, the use of miniature models to depict larger than life story components, such as large animals, monsters, robots, etc. Among the film techniques for providing such special effects, a technique known as the "blue screen process" evolved, which permitted the separate filming of background and foreground information with the two separate components being combined in a cinematography process. Generally speaking, the background information comprised the portions of the presentation which would generally be perceived by the viewer as the surrounding scene, while the foreground information comprised the content which would normally be described by the viewer as the performers and objects intimately involved with the performers. While the proper implementation of the blue screen process is one of sophistication and complexity, a sufficient understanding may be gleamed by describing the process as one in which a selected color, in this case blue, is designated within the process to be "invisible" and the remainder of the filming process is adapted to ignore objects which are blue. The process is then carried forward in a manner in which the foreground objects are photographed against background which is blue in the portion of scene content for which the background scene elements will be substituted. In its simplest form and by way of example, a blue screen process within a studio can be carried forward in which an entertainer appears before a blank blue wall and goes through various acting and performance activities. Simultaneously, a background film is created having an outdoor scene and two portions of film are combined by the blue screen process, producing a product in which the actors activities are seen displayed against the outdoor background giving the appearance of an outdoor activity.
While such blue screen processes were initially embraced by the film industry as methods of circumventing obstacles in film production, such as the need within the story line for a five story tall monster to appear or an actor in a science fiction film to appear in a futuristic environment which could not be created by set builders, it soon became apparent to film producers that the blue screen process might offer at least a partial alternative to the expense of filming the majority of the motion picture.
It should be noted that during this time of increasing technology and dramatic film growth, there was an accompanying increase in the cost of film production. As consumers demanded more and more sophisticated films and stopped being entertained by the mere existence of moving figures on the screen, increased pressure upon film producers for realism and dramatic effect in their films, caused them frequently to undertake substantial and expensive construction projects to build life-size sets for film production. Additionally, the consumer demands for realism and drama caused producers to begin filming their productions "on location" as opposed to the previously used studio back lots. The on location filming, as the name implies, required bundling up the entire movie company and transporting them to the local in which the filmed story is set. For example, the filming of a story set in Egypt would require bundling up the entire movie company, or a substantial portion of it, and transporting them to the appropriate location within the nation of Egypt. As can be imagined, this on location filming is extremely expensive and subject to considerable risks as more and more exotic film locations are demanded. Similarly, the costs of building life size movie sets to avoid on location filming also became extremely time consuming and expensive. Movie sets had the additional problem that they generally were not reuseable in many films and therefore represented a substantial cost in movie production. The extremely high costs of life-size set production and the similar high costs and accompanying hazards of on location filming caused film producers to reexamine the various technology processes which had during this time evolved, primarily in the special effects areas such as the blue screen process, as more than special effects but perhaps alternatives to both life-size set building and on location shooting.
Of the various techniques available, the cinematography blue screen process provided some potential for reduction of film producing costs in that some scene portions could be filmed within a studio and later combined with appropriate background information. The advantages of such blue screen processing the cost facet of production were substantial and film producers exercised their creativity in adapting story lines and other elements of film production to maximize the use of blue screen technology.
Unfortunately, the blue screen process is subject to several substantial limitations and has not as yet provided the desired alternative to high cost on location or life size movie set filming. For example, the blue screen process employed on film is an iterative process in which the end product or combined film is not viewable for evaluation until the entire process has been completed. As a result, and because it is difficult to control the end product during the filming of the individual scene portions, film producers frequently view the end product or combined film and require changes to either or both foreground and background film requiring that they "reshoot" either or both under different conditions and repeat the entire process evaluating the end result. Because the process includes variations which make compensation difficult and the effect on end product uncertain, the normal cycle for blue screen film production involves several iterations of this process. As a result, the blue screen process becomes extremely expensive in itself and often does not provide the desired lower cost alternative to the other filming methods.
The advent and growth of the color television entertainment industry developed in a similar manner to film production and soon became a competing art form to classic film production. During this growth period of color television production, art forms which would otherwise have been produced on film, have instead been produced within television studios and stored on video tape rather than film. As was the case in the growth of the film industry, the television entertainment producers soon discovered the same economics applied to them and they too embraced various technology alternatives, including the blue screen process. In the television or "video" format, the blue screen process iterations may be carried forward without the extensive time loss experienced by the film process. The video format offers the opportunity to examine the end product or combined foreground and background tape very quickly because, unlike film, video tape does not require a developing period. Unfortunately, the television industry is directed to the production of works which are eventually broadcast or transmitted to television receivers. As a result, the quality of image and resolution capabilities of the television production products is substantially less than that provided by the film industry.
As the film and television industries continue to grow, considerable interaction between them has resulted in various efforts to combine the two technologies and produce works which take advantage of the advantages each system provides. There exist in the art, for example, devices which convert image information stored on motion picture film to image information stored on video tape. There also exists devices which provide the reverse conversion of video tape to film. Despite the best efforts however, the two systems remain substantially incompatible and the practitioners of the art have not yet provided a method of production which makes use of the advantages of each respective technology. There remains therefore, a need in the art for a method of motion picture and television entertainment production which utilizes the advantages of the two technologies and provides for their ready combination in a efficient and creative manner.